manors, in some possibly as a bare trustee for another beneficial owner. A bare trustee is someone who holds assets for the benefit of a third party purely on personal trust, no legal agreement or documentation existing. It is interesting to speculate who the beneficial owner might have been; one possibility is Henry VII himself. Denys does not seem to have been a rich man himself, being a second son he would have had no inheritance, and his wife was the daughter of a younger son too. Yet he purchased ostensibly in his own name for his own beneficial interest, some very substantial properties, via a large group of "feoffees" or trustees, especially those purchased from Lord Gray. One of the feoffees in the Shenley purchase was Edmund Dudley, who was the first president of the "Council Learned in the Law" set up by the king in the last years of his life, which David Starkey explains as a private slush fund for the king, reducing his need to consult Parliament in order to raise revenues. The funds were generated by the imposition of "bonds" on those who were fined, often arbitrarily, for offences real or imaginary. Records exist which show these large sums were handed over regularly to Denys, the head of the Privy Chamber. Naturally the money needed investing somewhere, to generate income. A manor was then the closest equivalent to a stock exchange company. It was a going concern, with tenants, managers (i.e. stewards, bailiffs, etc.) and was fully staffed. The steward had only to redirect the stream of net profits to the new owner, as companies alter their dividend payments today to the bank accounts of new shareholders. Denys and his feoffees would receive the income directly into the Privy Purse, controlled by the head of the Privy Chamber, Denys himself, who, of course, was completely trusted by the king in handling his personal money. Thus, the king's revenue from extra-parliamentary fines was capitalised in real estate producing an income received directly by officers of the Privy Purse. It is significant that on Denys's death the properties held under this system of feoffees, in Denys's name, did not descend to Denys's heir, John Denys of Pucklechurch (as did apparently only Purleigh), but went to religious institutions with royal connections. This may have been the feoffees carrying out the secret wishes of the king, expressed to them